


The 25th President of the United States of America

by Miggy



Series: The 25th President of the United States of America [1]
Category: Glee
Genre: Gen, Gun Violence, Violence, school shooting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-12
Updated: 2010-06-12
Packaged: 2017-10-26 15:04:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,152
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/284652
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Miggy/pseuds/Miggy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gunmen attack the cafeteria of William McKinley High School with a plan to kill some of their fellow students. They succeed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The 25th President of the United States of America

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for [this prompt](http://community.livejournal.com/glee_angst_meme/336.html?thread=919632#t919632) at the Glee Angst Meme. It involves a school shooting and lays out who specifically is targeted. I would recommend avoiding the prompt at first if you would like to be surprised.
> 
> It is set at some indeterminate point after "The Power of Madonna."

William McKinley was the 25th president of the United States of America.

After that day, Tina Cohen-Chang thought in a distant haze, "William McKinley" would be associated with his presidency like "Columbine" was associated with a small purple flower.

"Oh God," Rachel sobbed, clutching her arm and trying to pull her to the floor. "Please help me. Tina, please help me. I need help."

It was like she wasn't even there, Tina thought vacantly. Was she in shock? It seemed unfair for her to be in shock, considering she hadn't been shot. Rachel had been shot in the leg and she was bleeding all over the floor, but it wasn't really that bad of a wound. The pressure on her leg was taking care of it. Rachel would be fine. But even so, Rachel had a right to be in shock.

"Tina!" Rachel pleaded.

"Why?" Tina asked vacantly, staring at the far side of the cafeteria. "She's dead."

Rachel sobbed and tried to place her hands on the bullet hole through Mercedes' chest, but any blood had long since stopped flowing. "Please help me, Tina. Please. Please you have to help me, I can't do this on my own, you have to _help me!_ "

Tina looked at the gunmen on the far side of the cafeteria and realized her teeth were chattering. She couldn't take her eyes off the barrels. _Obsessed with death_ , a voice said in her head. So long as she thought of this moment in the same way she read horror stories late at night, then it could keep on being just a dream.

"You got shot because you got in the way, Rachel," Tina said dreamily. "Just be quiet and take care of your leg. Then they won't shoot you again."

Rachel wailed.

"Shh, shh. It's okay. You don't need to help them. They're dead."

"How can you..." Rachel doubled over Mercedes' body, and reached out to stroke Santana and Brittany's still shoulders where they lay on the linoleum like their strings had been cut. Her hand came back even bloodier than before. "How can you not...?"

"It's not really happening," Tina said easily, wrapping her arms around herself. "It's not really happening."

She tried to move her feet and almost slipped. Tina took a careful step away from the splattered remnants of Dave Karofsky's head and then kept staring at the guns.

"It's not really happening."

* * *

"Put down the gun, son," Will Schuester said carefully. He placed himself between the gunmen and where his boys stood behind him, shaking together. "Why are you doing this?" he asked, trying desperately to keep the one gunman in front of him talking rather than shooting.

The low laughter that answered his question didn't set his mind at ease. "You don't know?"

He'd watched Rachel double over, clutching her leg and screaming. Mercedes was dead. There was no question about it, not with that shot. One of his students was dead, he'd watched it happen, and then the guns had turned on Santana and Brittany. Both might be alive. Or neither.

He'd watched his students get shot in front of him and he couldn't do _anything._

And if he hadn't given them one of their damned boys against girls assignments again, his kids could have at least been together when they died rather than plotting their songs at tables on opposite sides of the cafeteria.

"Shh, baby," Puck said as he wrapped his arms around Quinn. One lay protectively across her swollen stomach. "It'll be okay."

She'd come to ask Puck something about the doctor's office.

The boys had told her to stop spying on their awesome idea.

And then the shooting started.

Thin, pained noises kept coming from Kurt, no matter how he tried to tamp them down. They'd begun when he saw that hole open up in Mercedes' chest and they would only stop for a second before a fresh one escaped. "You have to stay quiet," Finn whispered to him. "God, please, stay quiet."

"She's dead. They killed her. She's dead. She's dead."

"Please stay quiet."

"Just tell me why you're doing this," Will begged him, tears finally spilling through his shock.

"What's my name, Mr. Schuester?" Will stared at him, bewildered. The boy hooked a thumb at the other roaming figure in the cafeteria. "What's his name?"

"I don't..."

"We had you for Spanish 2 all last year. Both of us. Back row. Right side."

He didn't remember them at all.

"No one does," the boy hissed, and Will realized he'd said that out loud.

* * *

Finn Hudson jerked as a fresh gunshot rang out. He reflexively squeezed Kurt's shoulder so hard that, for one second, he was worried he'd broken something. At a far corner of the room, near the food line, Azimio fell to the floor. The other gunman watched him land and then continued his slow circuit around the space.

Shrieks occasionally rang out from the students huddled together at the tables, but people were mostly quiet. They were crying, but they were crying quietly.

"It'll all be okay," he heard Puck promise Quinn, and thought again on what a good liar that guy could be.

Mr. Schuester had stopped by to see how their work was going. Finn felt guilty, but he was glad Mr. Schue was there. It meant he was in danger. But he was so scared, way more scared than he ever would admit to, and having their teacher there meant that he didn't have to be the one to step out there in front and use himself as a shield.

That realization hit Finn, and he was nearly sick in shame at himself.

The gun roamed a slow, lazy line along their group. Mr. Schue tensed in anticipation. "Don't touch them," he begged. "Please."

"Why do you hang out with them?" the gunman asked someone, mockingly. Finn risked turning and saw the gun was tracing the curve of Artie's jaw. Tears beaded the lenses of his glasses, but he stayed still rather than remove them. "Why even try? You know you'll never be like them."

"They're my friends," Artie whispered.

"They could never be friends with someone like you."

Finn flinched, expecting to hear a gunshot. Was this sick fuck taking down people he thought... he thought he was _better_ than? What... why... he didn't....

The gun moved away from Artie and he trembled in his chair. "Don't be nervous," the gunman said. "Unless you get in my way like those other idiots."

"Just tell us what you want," Quinn begged, even as Puck clutched her closer and begged her to stay quiet. "Please, leave me alone. Oh god, please leave me alone, I'm _pregnant_ , you'd kill a _baby_ , please leave me alone."

"Yeah," he chuckled. "Pregnant. Quinn Fabray, pregnant. That's why I'm not shooting you in the torso like the targets I practiced on. To be nice." And then he raised his gun, shot her in the leg, and caught Puck in the chest before he could do anything but scream in terror and rage.

 _This isn't happening._

"Oh god!" Mr. Schue screamed, but it was far and distant, and then there was another shot and he fell down, too.

"Please stay quiet," Finn said to Kurt, because he didn't know what else to do.

* * *

"Mr. _Schue_ ," the gunman said mockingly, "got in the way." He gestured at Artie again with his gun. "Are you going to get in the way?"

Artie, face splattered in a roostertail of Quinn and Puck's blood, shook his head and sobbed.

"Good." Kurt Hummel tried to control his breathing as the gun focused on the other four of them: him, Finn, Matt, and Mike.

He knew what was going on, and as soon as he realized that, he knew he would never see his dad again. It was that sudden stab of clear, total desperation that finally cut through his shock over Mercedes.

 _Mercedes. Mercedes. Mercedes._

A tear escaped, even as he tried to hold it back.

"Why are you crying?" the gunman asked mockingly. The gun traced Kurt's jaw as it had Artie's, but he knew that this time, he had intent to use it. He expected it to be cold, but it was hot. From gunshots, he realized distantly, and wondered if Puck or Mr. Schue were still alive. They were bigger than him. They had a better shot of making it than he did. "Your life's perfect."

"Leave him alone!"

Finn needed to stop talking.

Finn was going to be next.

"This whole fucked-up system," the gunman laughed, tracing down Kurt's throat with the hot metal. He tried not to flinch. "I spend years with these people. They don't know my name. You put on a _football_ or a _hockey_ or a _basketball_ or even a goddamn _cheerleading_ uniform and you're suddenly somebody." He laughed, giddy. "I saw you get hurled in dumpsters. And then you put on some red and white and all of a sudden you're prancing around at a pep rally while people cheer."

 _Please be okay, Dad. Please don't break from this. Please go on._

Then, to his shock, he realized the complete and utter lunatic was humming a song. Kurt stopped breathing when he placed it. Of course it sounded familiar. He'd sung it not very long ago.

"Four minutes to save the world, huh?" the gunman asked, giggling. It was an obscene, twisted sound. "Don't think your super awesome _uniform_ is gonna do that for you."

There was a noise, and pain, and Finn screaming and the smack of his head against the floor and blackness.

* * *

There was so much blood.

There was so much blood inside just one person.

Artie Abrams stared, shaking, at the blood pooling around the wheels of his chair. Mr. Schue's hand was slumped against the spokes on one side. He had a lot of blood in him, but now it was on the outside. Puck had a lot of blood in him, but now it was on the outside. Kurt had a lot of blood in him, but now it was on the outside.

 _When I roll away from this_ , Artie thought, tinged with more than a bit of hysteria, _I'll leave little tracks of them all._

Quinn howled in pain on the floor, where she was clutching both her leg and her bump. She was wearing a pretty, pale blue dress that day. He didn't think she'd wear that dress again.

Was this shock?

Or was this a heart attack?

He looked over and, through his water-stained glasses, saw Finn's expression. He was wracked with tears for the people at his feet, but he was also terrified. Huge, irregular breaths hitched into his chest. Matt and Mike, clinging to each other, were scarcely better.

Artie looked back to the gunman, not wanting to watch it happen but not willing to be surprised when he killed Finn. Artie sucked in a breath when he saw it, from his angle low on the ground: a red dot of light tracing just below his jaw, tracking down the boy's throat to his torso.

He flicked a glance over at the other gunman and wondered if there was a red dot on him, too.

 _Now,_ he thought desperately. _Now, now, now. Take your shot now. Now!_

The cafeteria exploded with noise, and Artie's eyes clenched shut instinctively. His ears, already ringing, couldn't tell if that shot had come from by his head or the cafeteria doors. He forced his eyes open.

The gunman was on the floor, clutching his bloody shoulder. Finn, Matt, and Mike were clutching each other, howling out their terror in one group embrace.

Artie let out a strangled noise as the gunman managed to get hold of his gun with his good arm, fumble it into position, and lift it even as blood kept flowing onto the floor.

His blood was mixing with Mr. Schue's blood, and Puck's, and Kurt's.

Even as Artie tried to find his voice to scream a warning to his friends, a part of him wanted to tell this asshole that he _wasn't allowed_ to desecrate the mess at his feet. But it all happened so fast.

* * *

Rachel Berry's leg hurt.

She wanted to scream at herself for even thinking of her leg, because her leg would be fine. Mercedes' chest would not be fine. Santana would not be fine, or Brittany or Mr. Schue or Quinn or Puck or Kurt. But the police had just taken down the gunmen and for a moment everything seemed to be over, and all she could think was that her leg hurt and that she wanted her dads.

She heard Artie scream something, scream Finn's name in a voice that didn't even sound like his, and ground her fingernails into the table.

It wasn't over?

An unearthly shriek of rage echoed through the cafeteria as she saw everyone try to flee in the other direction, out the exits, from the felled gunmen. There was only one figure moving the other way, headed straight toward the shooter. Rachel, with a gasp of horror, realized that he wasn't dead and was still about to finish what work he could before the shock wore off around him.

Six feet of pure, unbridled fury descended upon the boy on the floor. Rachel heard his gun go skidding, and saw with a wave of nausea that it had slid toward her.

"No, hold up!" the police yelled, rushing in with guns raised to secure the room. EMTs followed behind them, looking around at the carnage and yelling orders. "You don't know if... someone just get her off him!"

Rachel saw the police pull Sue Sylvester off the gunman, having to pry her free from the pulp she was making of his face with her fists, and how she didn't even see the cops surrounding her until she had finished looking around the room.

Even from her spot far away, Rachel could see Sue form silent names with her mouth.

When Sue Sylvester broke down crying, Rachel did, too.

* * *

There were so many injuries. The stampede of students had left dozens of them with broken bones, concussions, and general blunt trauma as they crushed those around them, or pitched them into the walls in their fevered rush to safety.

Half those students, and the most stable of the gunshot victims, were at Lima Memorial. The other half of the stampede had been transferred to St. Rita so they didn't overwhelm a small city hospital not prepared for the staggering magnitude of what had happened to it. Quinn was there, recovering from her surgery and her caesarean section. Sue Sylvester didn't know if the baby was all right. She'd have to find out.

The other victims had been airlifted to Columbus and its Level 1 Trauma Centers.

Sue kept a steady eye on the road as the sign disappeared over her head: "Columbus: Next 9 Exits."

"Where's Santana?" Brittany murmured when Sue had found her room in the hospital. Eyes fluttering but staying closed, she groggily insisted, "She should be here. Where's Santana?"

Brittany's parents clutched each other's arms and said nothing. Sue looked at the machines beeping around her girl and pursed her lips. "Santana will talk to you later, all right, kiddo? When you feel better." She nodded silently at the parents. "So feel better. Get better."

Sue managed to walk out of the room before she flashed back to seeing a body bag close around Santana's head.

In training, Brittany had to have her self-esteem crushed and rebuilt in order to pull off the moves that Sue wanted.

Right now, Brittany had to have her hopes raised to give the recovery that Sue wanted.

Simple coaching logic, she told herself, and swiped angrily at her cheeks when she realized they were wet. And Jones. She hardly counted as a Cheerio. Why would she cry over Jones? She was only there for a couple of weeks. She was just... just a kid.

"Just a kid," Sue whispered as she saw a broken man stand outside the ICU and stare through its window at the barrage of equipment within. She walked up next to him, looked at the pale, bandaged figured in the room, and said nothing.

"He's so little," the man sobbed into his hand. "So little."

Finn Hudson and a woman that had to be his mother walked up and collapsed into a teary embrace. Sue said nothing, just kept staring inside the window at the steady rise and fall of Kurt's wounded chest as the respirator thrummed away next to him. "Yeah," she said, arms folded. The trio seemed to suddenly realize she'd been standing there, all that time, and looked offended at the intrusion. "But he's tough."

Sue walked down the hall, searching for the number she'd been given, and quickened her pace when she saw a mother and daughter howling their misery in front of a similar ICU window. _Just a kid_ , she thought as Noah Puckerman clung to life.

When she found the room, Sue didn't bother knocking. "William."

The two women there looked up. One, that completely insane ex-nurse he was dumping like a bad mortgage, and then their school's psychologically unstable counselor. They were camped out on either side of his bed, each with a hand in their own, and that alone seemed to have him on edge. Seeing Sue enter made his pulse quicken.

Sue actually smiled a bit.

Maybe she needed to get all of McKinley hooked up to heart monitors. Then she'd know how successfully she managed to get them into fight-or-flight mode.

"Good job," she said simply, "looking out for your kids."

"That's not funny," he said with a quiet, murderous tone.

She was honestly taken aback. "Didn't mean it to be."

"They died," he said, staring at the ceiling through teary eyes. Both women tried to stroke his cheeks. "I watched it happen, and couldn't stop it. They died. Or they're in comas."

"You were there," she said simply. He met her eyes again. "And they're strong."

"They're just kids, Sue," he whispered, absolutely heartbroken.

She reached deep down inside herself and collected her composure. Brittany needed hope. William needed a target other than himself. "Don't whine, William. Just be glad the hospital let you bring in your hair gel. I would have thought it would have been classified as a biohazard."

"Get out," he said with pure venom in his voice.

She did.

"I'll watch them," she said when she'd returned to the ICU hallway. The three families—Hummel, Hudsons, and Puckermans—turned to her in surprise. "Go. Get food. Clean yourselves up. I'll watch them."

Just kids, Sue thought as she stared into an ICU room, not even processing which boy was in front of her, and thought about the zipper pulling across Santana's face.

Just kids.


End file.
